In turning Maleficent into a feminist morality play, Disney subverts the nature of fairy tales and suppresses any sense of magic and moral logic. For the child—and the adult who knows there is still a child in all of us—fairy tales reveal truths about ourselves and the world. As psychologist Bruno Bettelheim stated in his Read more
The best way to describe how I felt when I first became a mother is invisible. I went from going to meetings, lectures and libraries, where people would show interest in me and my work, to being stuck in our apartment with round the clock feedings and baby care. I didn’t see many people, and, Read more
A marker of 21st century adult life may be the eternal debate about whether to “disconnect” once in a while, but for children the question is a far more serious one. Born into the digital age and exposed to technology and the internet very early, this generation of kids are effectively guinea pigs in the Read more
This week, Forbes released its annual top celebrities list, The Celebrity 100. Quite simply, the list measures, as Forbes shamelessly puts it, “money and fame”. Calculating the in-crowd includes looking at earnings over the past year, as well as “media and social networking power”. One gets the sense that we are encouraged to idolize these people. Read more
Despite numerous controversies over dismissing gay Catholics from church posts and the U.S. hierarchy’s campaign against same-sex marriage, Catholic leaders have carefully, if quietly, avoided doing anything to block gay couples from having their children baptised. But a move by a bishop in Wisconsin to route all such decisions through his office is raising questions Read more
Sister Mary Brigid Perez has been nominated by Archbishop of Agana in Guam, Anthony S. Apuron, for the Catholic Extension’s Lumen Award. Sister Brigid spent nearly 50 years as an educator in Catholic schools in the Archdiocese. After she left teaching, she became program manager of the Alee Family Violence Shelter. “Alee” is the nautical Read more
A new study from Harvard University reveals that the message parents mean to send children about the value of empathy is being drowned out by the message we actually send: that we value achievement and happiness above all else. The Making Caring Common project at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education surveyed 10,000 middle and high school students about what was more important to Read more
It’s what they talk about in movies and soap operas; 15-years-old, Catholic and pregnant. The daughter of a well known policeman, to the son of a well known Catholic school principal. The shame. The embarrassment. The scandal. Well, that was me, the 15-year-old girl, and from the moment I snuck to the doctors to have Read more
The United Nations is demanding all clergy, known or suspected to be child abusers, be immediately removed from their posts. This is one of many wide-sweeping recommendations on February 5, from the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. Declaring the Holy See as in breach of the Convention of the Rights of the Read more
Concern is growing about increased pressures on teenagers to engage in risky behaviour such as sending sexually explicit text messages. Celebrity culture, the prevalence of sexual imagery and a lack of awareness about the consequences are among the pressures experts say are being piled on teenagers. Parents are now being called on to educate themselves Read more